Plastic bag with integral closing facility



Dec. 24, 1968 J. H. PAXTON PLASTIC BAG WITH INTEGRAL CLOSING FACILITYFiled April 10, 1967 JERRE H. PAXTON INVENTOR.

ATTORNEY.

United States Patent '0 3,417,912 PLASTIC BAG WITH INTEGRAL CLOSINGFACILITY Ierre H. Paxton, P.O. Box 2098, Yakima, Wash. 98902 Filed Apr.10, 1967, Ser. No. 629,441 1 Claim. (Cl. 229-62) ABSTRACT OF THEDISCLOSURE ,A transparent flexible bag, made of a suitable sheet plasticmaterial such as polyethylene, which has integrated therewith at asuitable distance below the open mouth of the bag a Kwik Lok type bagclosure so that when the BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of theinvention The provision of facilities for use by customers inselfservice markets in bagging articles picked up by them in the marketwhich they desire to purchase so that these can be readily identified,priced and the entire transaction recorded on a cash register strip by achecker representing the merchant.

Description of the prior art Heretofore kraft bags made of fairly heavypaper have been universally used in self-service markets to facilitatethe customers collecting merchandise and delivering it to the checkerfor identification and pricing and the rendering of an account to thecustomer of the prices of the individual articles and the total due themerchant for the entire lot of merchandise purchased.

The stiffness of these kraft bags has made them very servicable in thisfield for this characteristic tends to give the merchandise collectedtherein a fiat base at the bottom causing the bag to stand upright whenset on the counter. Thus the checker could readily look down through themouth of the bag and inspect and identify the merchandise containedtherein. This characteristic also facilitated the handling of the bagsof merchandise in packing them into larger bags or card-board boxes fordelivery to the customer.

The advantages in using kraft bags for the collecting of merchandise ina self-service market have been discounted, however, by the discovery bymany merchants that they are losing considerable quantities ofmerchandise through a shoplifting which is facilitated by the use of thekraft bags. Not only is the theft of merchandise accomplished by theshoplifter hiding it somewhere in his clothing but the practice is notuncommon of putting a piece of expensive merchandise such as a T-bonesteak in the bottom of a kraft bag and then covering it up with potatoesor other merchandise sold by weight at a much lower price than thesteak. The checker, being generally in a hurry, does not detect adeception of this kind with the result that merchants are suffering verysubstantial losses of merchandise.

Efforts to use transparent flexible plastic bags for the collection ofmerchandise by customers in self-service has heretofore been defeated bythe fact that such bags do not support the merchandise in a column as isthe case in 3,417,912 Patented Dec. 24, 1968 using kraft bags so that aplastic bag filled with merchandise must generally always be laid on thecounter and when this is done the merchandise tends to escape from theopen end of the bag.

Summary of the invention Inasmuch as the bags provided for the customersuse in a self-service market in collecting merchandise must be widelydistributed throughout the market it is not practical to depend upon theconventional means provided in the art for closing plastic bags for theclosing of such bags when they are provided for use by customers. It istherefore a principal object of the present invention to provide plasticbags for the use above indicated in which each bag is provided at thetime it is manufactured with a neckclosing facility which is integralwith the bag. This facility comprises a sheet clip type of closure madeof a suitable plastic material such as polystyrene and having a bag neckconfining aperture formed therein which communicates through a narrowopening with one edge of the closure, the clip being flexible so thatjaws formed at opposite sides of the narrow opening may be worked aroundthe twisted neck of the bag this introducing the latter into theaperture of the closure. This closure and equipment for applying thesame is manufactured and distributed throughout the world by Kwik LokCorporation of Yakima, Wash.

In the present invention, a Kwik Lok Closure, with the edge having theneck receiving opening disposed upwardly towards the open mouth of thebag is integrated with the bag by application of hot glue to the lowerend portion of the closure and the latter is then pressed against thematerial of the bag. The closure is thus free to swing outwardlyrelative to the bag about the area in which it is secured to said bag.

When the customer has collected as much merchandise in a plastic bag ofthe present invention as this will hold and still allow the neck thereofto be closed, the customer bunches together the loose material of theneck portion of the bag in one hand and twists this to reduce said neckportion to a rope like body which is exposed just inwardly from theconnection above described between said closure and the material of thebag. With the twisted neck held in one hand, the two jaws on oppositesides of the clos ure aperture are now engaged by the thumb and fingerof the free hand and pressed inwardly against such twisted rope so as tocause these jaws to spring outwardly and pass around said rope and cometogether on the other side thereof thus trapping the twisted neck of thebag within the aperture of said closure. Both hands may now be removedfrom the neck of the bag and the same will remain fastened by saidclosure until a reverse pressure is applied to the jaws of the closureto deliberately remove these from their embracing relation with the neckof the bag.

Brief description 0 the drawing FIGURE 1 is a'diagrammatic perspectiveview of an upper portion of a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention showing the open mouth of the neck of said bag gapping apartslightly.

FIGURE 2 is a fragmentary perspective view illustrating a bag of theinvention after this has been loaded with merchandise to a maximumextent possible while leaving the neck of the bag free for applicationof a closure thereto, and shows said neck being twisted and held by thethumb and forefinger of one hand after its having been twisted into ropelike compactness and with this located near the Kwik Lok type of closurewhich has been secured along its bottom edge as by hot glue to thematerial of the bag and with the closure standing away from the twistedneck of the bag.

- FIGURE 3 illustrates the next step following that shown in FIGURE 2 inthe closing of the bag of the invention by the application of the thumband forefinger of the other hand to the two jaws ,of the. closure of thebag so as to swing the closure upwardly, against the twisted neck of thebag and force the jawsof said closure to separate and pass around thetwisted neck until the latter comes to rest confined within the closureaperturc.

FIGURE4 is a view similar to FIGURE 3 and shows the bag of the inventionafter it has been closed by performance of the steps shown in FIGURES 2and 3 and the hands have then been removed from the bag so as to allowthe neck portion of the bag to fan out in a flower-like expansion whilethe portion of the twistedneck of the bag which was captured by theclosureremains so confined.

FIGURE 5 is a fragmentary vertical sectional view taken on the line 55of FIGURE 1 and illustrates the manner in which the lower edge of theclosure is secured to the bag of the invention by hot glue, leaving theclosure (free to pivot outwardly or inwardly relative to the bag aboutthe area of its connection to the latter.

Description. of the preferred embodiment The preferred embodiment of theinvention shown in the drawings comprises a plastic bag which ispreferably made of sheet polyethylene of the typecommonly used in themaking of bags for bagging bread, buns and the like and the bag may beof any construction and will be manufactured in various sizes to suitthe needs of the customers using the same. The bag 10 is preferablyuniform in cross section from the bottom to the top thereof and theupper end is open as shown in FIGURE 1. For convenience in describingthe invention, the upper end portion 11 of the bag 10 which extendsabout 2%" downwardly from said upper end will be referred to asthe neckof the bag. At a central position relative to the bag and at the lowerboundary of the neck 11, a Kwik Lok type closure 12, which is preferablymade of sheet polystyrene, is secured along its lower edge as by one ormore spots 13 of hot glue to the front wall 14 of said bag. The closure12 has formed internally therein a bag neck closing aperture 15 whichcommunicates with the upper edge of the closure through a narrow opening16 thereby dividing said upper edge into a pair of opposed jaws 17.

The application of closures 12 to the bags 10 is done in the process ofmanufacturing these bags and the bags are packed in stacks with the bagsin fiat condition superimposed one upon the other. These bags may or maynot be held together as by a wicket passing through apertures in lipswhich extend from one side of the mouth of each bag upwardly therefrom,as is common practice in packaging these bags for use by an automaticbagging machine. If so packaged and placed around the market where theywill be readily available to customers, the customer can readily takehold of the topmost bag in the stack and pull it free from the stack byrupturing the small amount of material of the bag which retains it inthe stack by engagement with the wicket. Any such arrangement (forpackaging the bags is of course no part of the present in enti n and iihfi t f re not illustrated in the drawings,

After a customer has separated one of the b ags 10 from a stack of thesehe uses the same to collect merchandise in a suitable quantity which thebag is capable of holdingand then proceeds to close the bag by bunchin-gtogether the neck 11 thereof with his two hands until he can seize theentire bunch in one hand andtwist the same as shown in FIGURE 2 to formthe neck 11 into a twisted rope 18 of sheet plastic. When a plastic rope18 has been formed of the neck 11 as shown in FIGURE 2 and the bunchedneck of the bag is still pinched between the thumb and forefinger of theright hand to maintain the neck thus twisted, the thumb and forefingerof the ,left hand is used to swing the closure 12 upwardly around itsconnection with the film of the bag so that this closure overlies thetwisted rope 18 as shown in FIGURE 3. The thumb and forefinger of theleft hand are then pressed against the jaws 17 of the closure so as tocausethese to 'yild apart and pass around said twisted neck and snaptogether on the other side thereof thereby trapping the neck of the bagin the closure aperture 15. When this has been done, the closing of thebag has been completed and no more attention need to be paid to thematter by the customer who then places the bag in his merchandisecollecting cart and proceeds with his marketing.

When the customer arrives at the checking stand and either the customeror the checker removes the bag of merchandise from the cart and placesit on the counter, the checker can readily see through the. transparentplastic bag and accurately identify all the items of merchandisecontained therein so a true account can be made of the merchandisedelivered to the customer by the checker. Furthermore the closing ofeach bag finalizes the packaging of the produce and greatlysimp lifiesthe loading of the merchandise into cardboard cartons or large kraftbags provided by the merchant for the customer to use in taking home themerchandise collected in the smaller plastic bags.

I claim: I

1. A plastic bag having a fiat sheet bag closure secured to an'outsideface of a wall of said bag just'below a substantial twistable neckportion of said bag adjacent the open upper end of said bag, saidclosure having a bag neck confining aperture formed inwardly from anedge thereof and connected with said edge by a narrow opening therebyproducing a pair of jaws in said closure located on opposite sides ofsaid opening, said-closure being securedto said bag at the opposite edgeof the closure from said edge having said opening therein, said closurebeing of stiff but springy material so that said jaws may be sprungapart by swinging said closure upwardly and pressing the same againstthe twisted neck of said bag so as to cause said jaws to pass aroundsaid neck and trap said neck in the aperture of said closure.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS

